The primary time I got here to Istanbul as a pupil within the late Eighties, I used to be immediately hooked on the meals. There have been dollhouse-like baklava retailers, teensy manti dumplings cloaked in yogurt, and inexperienced beans braised in olive oil till silky and luscious—a basic preparation referred to as zeytinyağli. What’s extra, meals typically got here framed by vistas so breathtaking, it felt like the town was a mirage.
Finally, I purchased an condominium in Istanbul, and every go to brings a brand new quest for probably the most succulent kebaps, crispiest lahmacun, and plumpest stuffed greens. As a quasi-local, I take consolation in figuring out that, beneath Istanbul’s picturesque gloss, a deep and codified meals tradition nonetheless thrives—one which my e book Nationwide Dish explores.
Maybe as a legacy of Ottoman chef guilds, conventional eating places right here proceed to concentrate on explicit genres. You eat your kebap at a kebapçi (kebap home) together with pomegranate-laced salads. For fish, you go to a balikçi (fish home) by the twilight Bosporus shores. After which there are the meyhanes, boisterous ingesting taverns the place a mosaic of meze unleashes rivers of raki, Turkey’s signature anise firewater.
This megalopolis of almost 16 million—straddling two continents and lapped by three totally different our bodies of water—can appear overwhelming to newcomers. However its important dishes, and my favourite locations that serve them, will fulfill your starvation for the perfect sweets, grills, and road meals—and provide help to uncover less-trodden elements of this magical metropolis.
Baked, boiled, or braised in olive oil, dolma (stuffed dishes) and sarma (stuffed leaves) flourish in Istanbul as one thing of an edible life drive. Savor a number of varieties at this pilgrimage-worthy restaurant within the northern district of Vadi. Chef Sinem Özler collects regional recipes from throughout Turkey and refines them with stellar approach and substances. Working example: her delicate sogan dolma—wood-fired onions filled with currant-studded rice perfumed with allspice and cinnamon—an previous Armenian Istanbul favourite. Or strive her chard sarma from the Black Sea area: greens folded round a comforting combination of bulgur and ricotta-like lor cheese.
Meze at Cibalikapi Balikçisi Haliç
Istanbullus eat their meze at meyhanes, institutions that had been run within the Ottoman period by non-Muslim minorities. At this time’s choices are anthologies of Istanbul’s polyglot previous: Armenian bean plaki, Albanian liver, Circassian rooster. That heritage is on show at this comfortable three-story tavern that serves excellent Armenian topik (a mashed chickpea ball crammed with caramelized onions), fish-centric meze like çiroz (cured dried mackerel), and the town’s creamiest tarama dip. The restaurant’s recipe for “Ottoman escabeche”—fried sea bass marinated in vinegar, honey, pine nuts, and 17 spices—comes from a 1748 medical treatise.
For an encyclopedic choice of grilled meats from southeastern Turkey, seize a sidewalk desk at Çiya Kebap, one of many eating places (together with Çiya Sofrasi, proper throughout the road) owned by Musa Dağdeviren, the celebrated anthropologist-chef. The rotating roster of some two dozen choices (normally formed from hand-minced lamb or beef) options kebaps on a mattress of yogurt or smoky mashed eggplant, extra kebaps studded with poppy seeds or pistachios, and the current summer time stunner referred to as lahm-i kiraz, a nonetheless lifetime of grilled meatballs, child onions, and cherries. Insider tip: Clients can ask for meze and stews from Çiya Sofrasi to be dropped at their Kebap restaurant desk.
Together with kebap, lahmacun arrived in Istanbul from the nation’s southeast within the mid-Twentieth century. Now, this skinny flatbread baked beneath a tomatoey schmear of floor meat is the gas of 1,000,000 lunches and snacks—an area obsession. Ask for it çitir (extra-crispy), then roll it up with lettuce, herbs, and squirts of lemon. For the flatbread’s Platonic ideally suited, queue for a desk at this good-looking conventional Osmanbey restaurant run by Kurdish chef-owner Mahir Nazlican. Blistered in a stone oven, Mahir’s ethereally mild lahmacun comes topped with minced lamb and a smidgen of beef blended with tomatoes, parsley, and dried chiles, together with the smoky isot pepper from Urfa.
Kokoreç is a gutsy dish of lamb intestines rolled into cylinders round sweetbreads, then roasted or grilled. A favourite hangover treatment, it has distant Byzantine origins and a deep Balkan connection and is claimed by Turks and Greeks alike. For an exalted rendition, head to this charming restaurant within the Yeniköy district. Chef-owner Burçak Kazdal is a former butcher’s apprentice with an appreciation for offal. Beginning with a slender suckling lamb kokoreç roll, she roasts it for hours with spices, crisps it in her oak charcoal grill, then sends it out with palate-cleansing accompaniments comparable to a cacik (yogurt dip) of bitter inexperienced plums and arugula dressed with pomegranate molasses.
Beneath the hovering span of the Second Bosphorus Bridge on the Asian shore, this glamorous waterside spot well updates fish home classics: Lakerda (cured bonito) comes with a cute pickle assortment, and a brawny grilled octopus starter is served with fire-singed inexperienced beans and asparagus. For the principle occasion, select one thing cheffy from the printed menu—say, branzino with mastic-scented eggplant—or choose from the each day catch glistening on ice and have your çipura (sea bream) or levrek (sea bass) expertly grilled. Savor all of it because the bridge lights up within the gathering nightfall whereas white ferries glide by and the night air turns salty and bracing.
Behold ghraybeh bi ashta, a miraculous pastry with a scallop-edged shell giving approach to a luscious heart of clotted cream (ashta). This deal with—plus the crumbly date-filled ma’amoul cookies, cheese-oozing knafeh, syrup-doused semolina confections, and plenty of iterations of baklava—are on show on the pastry retailers in Istanbul’s Fatih district, the place Syrian exiles have been opening companies for the reason that begin of their nation’s ruinous civil battle. My present favourite bakery is that this upmarket chain with a number of Istanbul branches. Attempt their halawet el-jibn, a fluffy roll of semolina cheese dough filled with extra cheese and ashta—a cult deal with of exile nostalgia.
Crispy Artichokes at Hodan
One pleasure of being in Istanbul in spring is watching enginar (artichoke) distributors speed-peel their ’chokes to set them bobbing on show in tubs of vinegar water. Normally, these knifeworks find yourself in a zeytinyağli—braised in olive oil together with carrots and peas. However chef Çiğdem Seferoğlu had a greater concept; at Hodan, her glamorous Beyoğlu restaurant, she fries the artichoke bottoms tempura-style, then serves them in a inexperienced shock of blanched peas and contemporary herbs drizzled in lemony olive oil sauce. To search out the perfect artichokes, Seferoğlu follows the harvest from Turkish Cyprus to the Aegean to the fertile Sakarya province, getting them at their seasonal prime.
Shiny mussels hawked from metal trays are a quintessential Istanbul road meals, normally offered by Kurdish distributors close to chaotic ferry terminals. For one thing extra elegant, declare a bar stool at Biz Istanbul, a brand new restaurant perched atop the Ataturk Cultural Middle in Taksim Sq., and order the midye dolma (stuffed mussels) with an Armenian-style filling candy and fragrant with slow-cooked onions and cinnamon. There are additionally terrific fried mussels—a Greek Istanbul specialty—served on toast with dabs of creamy tarator sauce. Eat your manner by means of the bar menu whereas watching the solar set over the Bosphorus—a necessary eating expertise on this hedonistic metropolis of sweeping vistas.
Earlier than Istanbul breakfasts advanced into as we speak’s extravaganzas, morning meals had been easier affairs that usually revolved across the iconic combo of honey (bal) drizzled over wealthy clotted cream (kaymak) thick sufficient to chop with a knife. Based by a Bulgarian dairy service provider named Boris in 1936 within the Kumkapi district, Boris’in Yeri peddles in nostalgia and the town’s definitive kaymak, made utilizing water buffalo milk sourced from small farms and served in a puddle of thick Black Sea honey. There are farm-fresh eggs, too, fried with kavurma (braised beef) or scrambled with stewed tomatoes and peppers. Comply with go well with as aged regulars stir honey into their glasses of heat milk.
Turkish Airways flies to extra nations than another service on earth, which makes Istanbul a straightforward metropolis to go to wherever you’re primarily based. It’s typically ranked by Skytrax as one of many world’s prime 10 airways, and its versatile Istanbul layover program consists of complimentary resort stays and metropolis excursions, an unusual perk effectively price cashing in on.
